We The People Are The Work
- Submitting institution
-
University of the West of England, Bristol
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 2614608
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Plymouth
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- September
- Year of first exhibition
- 2017
- URL
-
http://foregroundprojects.org.uk/projects/we-the-people-are-the-work/
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Research Process
This work comprises a major visual arts project in Plymouth curated by Simon Morrissey that explored ideas of power, protest and the public.
The project built connections between the people of Plymouth and internationally renowned artists Claire Fontaine, Peter Liversidge, Antonio Vega Macotela and Eduardo Thomas, Ciara Phillips and Matt Stokes, through structures that involved the public generating the ideas for exhibited artworks alongside artists.
Venues across the city (including Plymouth City Council’s Council House and the city’s public galleries) hosted a series of commissioned artworks that explored our engagement with politics and identity. In the wake of global events (Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, the recent UK general election) the exhibition explored the shared experiences and social difference that shape our society and our aspirations and fears for the future.
Research Insights
The new artworks commissioned especially for and with the people of Plymouth are concerned with ideas of articulation and power – how do we as individuals, as the public, get our voices heard within or against the structures of power that govern our lives and claim to speak for us, the people? The project is explicitly concerned with the function of the artist as a generator and facilitator of democratic principles in contemporary society.
Research Dissemination
The exhibition was reviewed in respected contemporary art journals including Art Monthly and thisistomorrow and the academic journal Punk & Post-Punk.
‘We The People Are The Work’ was commissioned by Plymouth Visual Art Programming Group, a partnership between The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, KARST, Peninsula Arts at Plymouth University, Plymouth Arts Centre and The Box, Plymouth as part of Horizon, a collaborative two-year programme of visual contemporary arts. ‘We The People Are The Work’ was majority funded by an Arts Council England Ambition for Excellence grant.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
